December 2019                                                                                                                 

LOCAL HISTORY AND GENEALOGY SECTION

Chair’s Update

Items Submitted to the IFLA Governing Board

Annual Report

The Annual Report for 2018-2019 was submitted to the IFLA Governing Board. Among the items we reported on were the successes of the Open Session at WLIC 2019 in Athens and the Satellite Conference in Belgrade, which preceded the Open Session.

(Note: “we” in this “Chair’s Update” means “I, and on behalf of our section.”)

The chair extends her gratitude again to those who helped with these sessions, especially Laila Hussein Moustafa and Bozena Rasmussen, who coordinated the Satellite Conference.

Action Plan

We submitted our Action Plan for 2019-2021, as required by IFLA. After input from active members of the Standing Committee, beginning with our business meetings in Athens and continuing via email after that, we selected three focus areas that were aligned with IFLA’s Strategic Plan. The Action Plan was accepted. The focus areas are:

  • Focus Area 1: Identify and map organizations, institutions, associations, etc. with local history and genealogy collections and develop a spreadsheet or database that will encourage collaboration and networking.
  • Focus Area 2: Identify, collect, and publish best practices, models, and standards of developing and managing local history.
  • Focus Area 3: Identify and share learning and professional development opportunities.

Proposals for WLIC 2020 and Satellite Conference 2020

We submitted a proposal to have one Open Session and two Business Meetings again at WLIC 2020. We also submitted a proposal for a Satellite Conference in Scotland. These have been approved by the IFLA Governing Board at its meeting earlier this month.

Open Session: The Open Session is in collaboration with the Indigenous Matters Section and the Rare Books and Special Collections Section. We can now prepare and send out a Call for Proposals. The chair will be forming a committee to do this and to review submissions.

Satellite Conference: The chair extends her gratitude to Cherie Bush for her work in coordinating this with the National Library of Scotland. There are a few details that still need to be worked out, but the IFLA Governing Board has approved what has already been submitted. The Satellite Conference is in collaboration with the Asia and Oceania Section. The chair will be calling on others to help Cherie in the task of coordinating this.

Change to IFLA Mailing Lists

As per an email from Sophie Felfoldi, the IFLA Mailing List Administrator, dated, December 9, IFLA mailing lists have changed and all mailing list subscribers are now subscribed to a list that ends in @iflalists.org. The Local History and Genealogy Section listservs therefore are, GENLOC@iflalists.org and GENLOC2@iflalists.org

IFLA Website and the Local History and Genealogy Section Webpage

As you probably know, IFLA continues to work on its website. In the meantime, our Information Coordinator, Takashi Nagatsuka, now has access to the webpage and will be uploading important documents and updating the webpage itself.

Standing and Corresponding Committees and General Membership

We appreciated those who showed great interest in serving on the Standing Committee and the Corresponding Committee of our section, especially during WLIC 2019. The chair will be working with IFLA Headquarters to confirm all information regarding committee members. We recognize that there are a few Standing Committee members who have been inactive. The chair will be contacting those inactive members to confirm their status in the section. As suggested on our Action Plan, we do have a lot of work to do, and it is important that we have active members who can assist in this.

We also want to continue to increase our general membership. Do encourage others to join this section.

IFLA Governance

A major issue that came up at WLIC 2019 in Athens was the IFLA structure and the structure of the IFLA groups. Our Division II chair, Helen Vincent, reported that no discussion or action regarding this has taken place since the meeting in Athens.

Conclusion

Do let the chair, or the secretary, Laila Hussein Moustafa, know if you have any questions about any activities of the section. We will continue to keep you informed of important activities.